Friday, April 29, 2011

Functional Art!

Students in grades 2-5 created functional ceramic artwork by using a mold to give their clay shape. Different grades used different materials for their molds. 4th and 5th graders used silver pie tins, 3rd graders used pencil boxes and 2nd graders used french fry holders. We learned about different design types including radial designs and symmetrical designs. We then used a variety of found objects (including marker caps, keys and pencils) to create designs in our functional art by stamping these objects into the clay. We then learned about between warm and color color schemes and painted our projects with tempera paint. Lastly, we finished them off with a clear-coat to seal them up and make them nice and shiny!
Please note this are not safe for food or drink.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Jackson Pollack Action Paintings!

First grade artists learned about Jackson Pollack's way of painting. He would splatter, fling, drip, and pour his paint onto his giant canvas to create his abstract paintings. We did some splatter painting, but the action in our painting came from using straws to blow paint around our papers. We reviewed our primary colors, tints and shades. We used red, yellow, blue, black and white watered-down tempera paints to create these paintings. This was a fun project!